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It's an unpopular opinion, but healthcare insurance has the potential to be great, while the NHS is destined to fail. It's so ingrained in Britain that the NHS is the best thing ever, that it'll be almost impossible to swing that direction.

I certainly haven't gotten my money's worth from the NHS, I had to go for a broken foot which amounted to 4 consultations, but that's pretty much it. I'd be better served by insurance and having regular check-ups to see if there is indeed anything wrong with me, and catch it before it happens. 

 

 

It's easy for me to have that opinion though. I'm never seriously ill and I have enough money to live comfortably.

The whole point is that you don't get your money's worth out of it when you're healthy - that money goes to people who desperately need it!

It's certainly true that the NHS has been set up to fail by a lot of successive governments who would rather see its budget disappear into their cronies' pockets but that's hardly a knock on the system.

The Netherlands used to have a collective health service and now it's all privatised insurance companies that make millions and millions of euros of profit from the obligatory health insurances everyone how has to take out, none of which money goes into the state coffers. It's disgusting.

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Yeah the NHS isn't about being the best for each person, it's about being a good service for everyone no matter who you are or what you can afford. It has its problems sure and it'll no doubt be a tragic state by the time the Tories are done decimating the state but I believe historically it's been consistently ranked as one of the best in the world.

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The whole point is that you don't get your money's worth out of it when you're healthy - that money goes to people who desperately need it!

It's certainly true that the NHS has been set up to fail by a lot of successive governments who would rather see its budget disappear into their cronies' pockets but that's hardly a knock on the system.

The Netherlands used to have a collective health service and now it's all privatised insurance companies that make millions and millions of euros of profit from the obligatory health insurances everyone how has to take out, none of which money goes into the state coffers. It's disgusting.

 

I have an issue with the first point, it doesn't fit my ideology. I'm not saying there should be no buffer to protect the most vulnerable, I just don't see why I should pay for something I get no use from, just in case. Seems like Pascal's Wager to me. 

 

I also have an issue with the 3rd point. The money that is taxed goes directly back into the NHS (and funnelled to projects that I don't support at all, I'm sure - like Trident), so I don't really see the difference between that and it going into privatised companies. if it means better care for people, why should it bother me that some people are getting rich off it?

 

 

I think it's fairer, perhaps, in combination with your previous post, to argue that "The NHS, as it currently prioritises various aspects of health care, is destined to fail"? 

 

I think that's probably fairer, but I wasn't pointing out why I thought that. It's more to do with an increasingly ageing population. If that problem doesn't sort itself out (and I don't see how it can, without making people wait until they're 80 for retirement, which sounds gross to me), I think the NHS will implode as the money required to keep it running will be even more astronomical than it already is.

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I have an issue with the first point, it doesn't fit my ideology. I'm not saying there should be no buffer to protect the most vulnerable, I just don't see why I should pay for something I get no use from, just in case. Seems like Pascal's Wager to me. 

 

Ah, and I think I see where your point of difference to the people replying to you in this thread is. You don't pay for something you get no use from, just in case; you pay for something which benefits society as a whole, because you're part of society.

 

I think that's probably fairer, but I wasn't pointing out why I thought that. It's more to do with an increasingly ageing population. If that problem doesn't sort itself out (and I don't see how it can, without making people wait until they're 80 for retirement, which sounds gross to me), I think the NHS will implode as the money required to keep it running will be even more astronomical than it already is.

 

I think this depends on how management of very old populations develops over the next few decades - at present, our major problems are that we don't have good treatments for neurodegenerative illnesses, just palliative care (which is really expensive over time). Plus, our solutions for cancer are wildly variable in effectiveness depending on the specific cancer.

If this doesn't improve, then, yes, the increased burden on palliative care for the old will become unsustainable, for a period (until we get past the population peak curve, given that birth rates are currently below replacement).

On the other hand, if we develop better solutions for at least some neurodegenerative illnesses, or better (hopefully cheaper) cancer treatments (and also emphasised preventative screening for cancers in the old, as stage 1 cancers are almost all really easy to deal with), then the NHS could probably do okay.

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I have an issue with the first point, it doesn't fit my ideology. I'm not saying there should be no buffer to protect the most vulnerable, I just don't see why I should pay for something I get no use from, just in case. Seems like Pascal's Wager to me.

But if people who get no use from it aren't paying for it, who is? Where is the money to pay for the healthcare of those who can't afford it supposed to come from? Either it's the state, i.e. you and me and everyone else through taxation according, in theory, to our means; or it's from charity, which is less reliable and a much less fair distribution, because it depends on conscience. At least with tax the bastards have to put a fucking effort in to dodge it; with charity all they have to do to avoid contributing is nothing at all.

Or how about you look at it like this: your prize for paying for more than you use is that you get to live in good health. It's not like sick people are laughing their way to the bank.

I can believe the NHS is inefficient, but private health insurance isn't any sort of a replacement unless we all pool our money together and pay for health insurance for everyone in the country. That seems unlikely.

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But if people who get no use from it aren't paying for it, who is? Where is the money to pay for the healthcare of those who can't afford it supposed to come from? Either it's the state, i.e. you and me and everyone else through taxation according, in theory, to our means; or it's from charity, which is less reliable and a much less fair distribution, because it depends on conscience. At least with tax the bastards have to put a fucking effort in to dodge it; with charity all they have to do to avoid contributing is nothing at all.

Or how about you look at it like this: your prize for paying for more than you use is that you get to live in good health. It's not like sick people are laughing their way to the bank.

I can believe the NHS is inefficient, but private health insurance isn't any sort of a replacement unless we all pool our money together and pay for health insurance for everyone in the country. That seems unlikely.

 

In the past decade the NHS frequently has been measured as one of, if not THE most efficient Health Service in the world.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-efficient-health-care-2014-countries

 

Although it has in the last few years been getting less efficient ....................... maybe due to a ageing population (maybe also to do with un-needed structural reforms).

 

The simple thing is though if you asked me what one thing i was most proud of the UK for it would be universal healthcare

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I sat in on a meeting earlier this week that's kind of related to the decline of efficiency in the NHS. I guess if anyone is interested in insights that an American hospital's attempts to increase efficiency have gotten by using recent (last 5-10 year) NHS moves as examples of what not to do, I guess I can type something up later.

But be forewarned -- they're a little inside baseball.

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Okay, so I'll talk about two weird internal problems at UK hospitals that I've been talked at about -- charting and clinical guidelines.

 

Clinical guidelines are pretty much exactly what they sound like. They're guidelines on how to best treat something -- how often to check the sensitivity on a diabetic's foot or how to best figure out what kind of inhaler device works best for someone with a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, questions that are kind of common but you might not remember as a doctor. Every doctor judges these things differently -- maybe Dr. Sumi wants to check his diabetic patients for neuropathy every 6 weeks, but Dr. White wants to check every 12 -- so the guidelines provide a nice baseline for an institution to have a standard of care. The NHS was a great source of these guidelines, but they've stopped or slowed down in updating a lot of them because of some institutional restructuring or something. So now there's just a lot of fragmentation in quality of care, and there's less consistency across the health system. There was always variance -- doctors aren't machines and guidelines aren't a 100% reliable ruleset -- but it's a lot more pronounced now because there's not as reliable a set of helpful instructions, or you have the Scottish version and the English version and the Welsh version and who the fuck cares I'll just do what I want. The guidelines should be publicly available too -- if you want to see how your government wants to treat you medically, have at it! Some of them are very old and not very good.

 

And charting. Basically, the NHS uses different types of coding in their charts, ICD-10 and SNOMED. They're both good systems, but they don't directly correlate and the system that's in place to translate between the two isn't that great so some specifics of diseases can get lost -- your "diabetic with complications" coding goes through for two patients, but the sub-codes might not so now your diabetic who only has periodontal disease looks the same as the patient who has necrosis and retinopathy with macular edema and chronic kidney disease and etc etc etc. Even though ICD-10 has a lot of different ways to track diabetes, they aren't always used because of some problems with translating from one code set to another. This means that the same things end up needing to be re-diagnosed over and over and over and over and over again if a patient goes between two institutions, which is really inefficient and has a pretty heavy impact on quality of care.

 

That is the short version of what it took some blowhard like two hours to say.

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I'm going to be starting a new job next month in Leamington Spa and need somewhere to live, there's a three month probation period though and while I very much doubt I'd be let go at the end of it, I can't really commit to longer. Which reduces my options a tad, any ideas?

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With the collapse of Stormont in Northern Ireland looking imminent I am curious as to how much attention is being paid to it in the UK?

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I'm going to be starting a new job next month in Leamington Spa and need somewhere to live, there's a three month probation period though and while I very much doubt I'd be let go at the end of it, I can't really commit to longer. Which reduces my options a tad, any ideas?

 

It's the start of the term at the University of Warwick, so you might be able to just walk Leamington (or go to the University) and find many students offering rooms. I don't think you'll have a hard time convincing them if the rooms are empty by term time. 

(just in case I'll ask around and see if anyone know about anything. Also, welcome to the area!)

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Empty by term time? January intake I guess, I always forget that's a thing :)

Also thanks, I don't need anything fancy, I've lived in some... interesting situations and made do before so I'm pretty flexible.

At the moment I'm looking on http://www.spareroom.co.uk if anyone knows any other good sites then please let me know.

 

@seamus

It's being covered but isn't getting a lot of air time, which seems to sadly be the norm for NI in the media over here. It's a odd relationship.

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I meant that it won't be difficult to convince them on a 3-month arrangement that is very likely to be extended if the room is empty anyway. :)

 

Spareroom is good, as far as I'm aware. I've never actually moved to any of the places I've checked from there, but the people seemed to be serious and the ads were true to reality and with pricing that seemed fair. It might be worth keeping an eye at the accommodation forums at the Warwick SU website, people tend to advertise vacancies there as well: http://www.warwicksu.com/forums/topiclist/630/

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It's being covered but isn't getting a lot of air time, which seems to sadly be the norm for NI in the media over here. It's a odd relationship.

 

I was thinking that. Reading about Irish history I have learned that Britain cares far less about the North than the Unionists do particularly after the Good Friday agreement and Tony Blair leaving. It has me wondering if there is a referendum in the north on joining the Republic will the British care as much about as when Scotland did it.

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@ratamero

Ah right :)

 

@seamus 

Yeah it's unfortunate, maybe it'll change in time but I don't think it'll be any time soon. As for a referendum I am certain that most Britons would not care as much as they did about Scotland :(

 

Edit: The sad face emoticon (do people still call them that?) on this forum is strangely ill-fitting...

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That OJ Simpson TV series that's supposed to be really good is airing on BBC2 on Monday.

Set a series link innit

Also 'the night manger' airs on BBC1 on Sunday 21st

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So who's excited about that EU referendum? Boris Johnson versus David Cameron, eh? Personally I hope that somehow, both sides lose.

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Ugh. Referendum's a bad word ever since a few weeks here in the Netherlands. Populist theatre, is what it is.

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if I didn't know that leaving the EU is a stupid decision in almost every way, I'd be tempted to support it just because this horrible government is pushing hard for Remain.

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